Zhongdian - China
7/10/05
We left the guesthouse in Lijiang in the morning not knowing exactly how far we would be able to move on; our desired destination was Litang, a village way north on the Tibetan Highway.
The old woman, from the guesthouse where we stayed at in Lijiang, brought us to the gate and gave us necklaces for good luck.
At the bus station we didn't have much luck though, there was no bus to Litang, the closer we could get was to Zhongdian, only half-way to Litang, and it still would take us 5 hours in the bus. Since we really wanted to go on the Tibetan Highway we went for it.
We traveled at high altitudes through tortuous roads, which makes it difficult to travel fast, but it was so beautiful. One have the impression of being traveling above the clouds.
Zhongdian is 200 km ( but it takes 5 hours) north-west of Lijiang and marks the end of the Chinese world and the start of the Tibetan world. This is the closest you can get to Tibet without having to deal with the legal hassle and expenses of entering it; even not being officially in Tibetan land it is possible to grasp what Tibet is like.
I have to mention that Zhongdian is at 3.200m of altitude, so we left the nice temperate climate behind and entered the cold; long pants and fleeces were necessary.
The architecture changed to a Tibetan style with houses made of high walls and tiny windows.
At the town, we went around in search of lunch and we found Momo, one of the Tibetan dishes we enjoyed so much in Nepal during the Annapurna Trek; it was nice to be able to order it again.
Itinerary breakdown.
Back at the guesthouse we had a big surprise. Our plans were to travel part of the Tibetan-Sichuan Highway Southern route,the highest highway in the world, above 4.000m. One of the cities we would have like to visit was Litang, at 4.600m.
So we decided to have a closer look on how long it would take to issue my visa to enter Australia, our next country. That was to be able to plan how many days we could spend on the wonderful Tibetan Highway.
It was when we found that the Australian embassy would need 10 working days to issue my visa and it would have to be done from either Beijing, Hong Kong or Shanghai, while Angie was entitled to conveniently issue her visa by herself via Internet (it takes 5 minutes) because of her French nationality. There was no fast issuing process like for the other countries.
That broke completely our itinerary in China and also put in check our plans in Australia. Not to mention that Flavien, a friend, had already bought flight tickets to meet us in Melbourne; even more, if I cannot get into Australia I won't be able to use my already paid ticket to get to New Zealand, because the flight leaves from Sydney, in short words, our trip was in great jeopardy.
To relax a bit from the stress of the new situation, Angie went to see a Tibetan dance event that takes place every night at the central square of the village. Tibetan used to train that dance at home and only dance it together for special occasions like weddings. Since more and more Chinese Han are moving to the region to invest in hotels and tourist activities, Tibetans started to meet and teach the young Tibetan the traditional dances to preserve their culture. At the beginning of the evening, the old people start and then more and more people join and at the end of the evening the whole square is filled with dancing people. It lasts around four hours. Here are two movies from the beginning of the night.
download dance movie 1
download dance movie 2
While Angie spent two hours watching the Tibetan dancing, I stayed at the guesthouse hiding from the cold and watching movies to have a break from the Asian world.
7/11/05
The second day in Zhongdian we did nothing but to prepare papers for the Australian visa and rush to Beijing. The owner of the guesthouse was really helpful, he drove us around to make copies of the papers, buy the bus tickets and got us an address in Kunming to buy our plane tickets. He was really nice. Luckily we had all the needed papers with us.
We first had to take a sleeper bus back to Kunming where we would buy a flight to the capital of China.
The bus trip to Kunming started at 1 p.m. and took us 15 hours. The road along the Yang Tse river was spectacular.
7/12/05
We arrived in Kunming at 5:30 a.m, but we didn't know it was Kunming until the day was clear, because nobody got off the bus, everyone stayed in bed at the bus station, even the driver.
In Kunming we went to travel agency recommended by the guesthouse owner in Zhongdian and with some patience and help of our phrasebook we (Angie) managed to buy for a good price two tickets to Beijing, leaving at 8 p.m.
After that, we found a nice cafe with Internet access where we selected pictures for the blog during the rest of the day.
We left the guesthouse in Lijiang in the morning not knowing exactly how far we would be able to move on; our desired destination was Litang, a village way north on the Tibetan Highway.
The old woman, from the guesthouse where we stayed at in Lijiang, brought us to the gate and gave us necklaces for good luck.
At the bus station we didn't have much luck though, there was no bus to Litang, the closer we could get was to Zhongdian, only half-way to Litang, and it still would take us 5 hours in the bus. Since we really wanted to go on the Tibetan Highway we went for it.
We traveled at high altitudes through tortuous roads, which makes it difficult to travel fast, but it was so beautiful. One have the impression of being traveling above the clouds.
Zhongdian is 200 km ( but it takes 5 hours) north-west of Lijiang and marks the end of the Chinese world and the start of the Tibetan world. This is the closest you can get to Tibet without having to deal with the legal hassle and expenses of entering it; even not being officially in Tibetan land it is possible to grasp what Tibet is like.
I have to mention that Zhongdian is at 3.200m of altitude, so we left the nice temperate climate behind and entered the cold; long pants and fleeces were necessary.
The architecture changed to a Tibetan style with houses made of high walls and tiny windows.
At the town, we went around in search of lunch and we found Momo, one of the Tibetan dishes we enjoyed so much in Nepal during the Annapurna Trek; it was nice to be able to order it again.
Itinerary breakdown.
Back at the guesthouse we had a big surprise. Our plans were to travel part of the Tibetan-Sichuan Highway Southern route,the highest highway in the world, above 4.000m. One of the cities we would have like to visit was Litang, at 4.600m.
So we decided to have a closer look on how long it would take to issue my visa to enter Australia, our next country. That was to be able to plan how many days we could spend on the wonderful Tibetan Highway.
It was when we found that the Australian embassy would need 10 working days to issue my visa and it would have to be done from either Beijing, Hong Kong or Shanghai, while Angie was entitled to conveniently issue her visa by herself via Internet (it takes 5 minutes) because of her French nationality. There was no fast issuing process like for the other countries.
That broke completely our itinerary in China and also put in check our plans in Australia. Not to mention that Flavien, a friend, had already bought flight tickets to meet us in Melbourne; even more, if I cannot get into Australia I won't be able to use my already paid ticket to get to New Zealand, because the flight leaves from Sydney, in short words, our trip was in great jeopardy.
To relax a bit from the stress of the new situation, Angie went to see a Tibetan dance event that takes place every night at the central square of the village. Tibetan used to train that dance at home and only dance it together for special occasions like weddings. Since more and more Chinese Han are moving to the region to invest in hotels and tourist activities, Tibetans started to meet and teach the young Tibetan the traditional dances to preserve their culture. At the beginning of the evening, the old people start and then more and more people join and at the end of the evening the whole square is filled with dancing people. It lasts around four hours. Here are two movies from the beginning of the night.
download dance movie 1
download dance movie 2
While Angie spent two hours watching the Tibetan dancing, I stayed at the guesthouse hiding from the cold and watching movies to have a break from the Asian world.
7/11/05
The second day in Zhongdian we did nothing but to prepare papers for the Australian visa and rush to Beijing. The owner of the guesthouse was really helpful, he drove us around to make copies of the papers, buy the bus tickets and got us an address in Kunming to buy our plane tickets. He was really nice. Luckily we had all the needed papers with us.
We first had to take a sleeper bus back to Kunming where we would buy a flight to the capital of China.
The bus trip to Kunming started at 1 p.m. and took us 15 hours. The road along the Yang Tse river was spectacular.
7/12/05
We arrived in Kunming at 5:30 a.m, but we didn't know it was Kunming until the day was clear, because nobody got off the bus, everyone stayed in bed at the bus station, even the driver.
In Kunming we went to travel agency recommended by the guesthouse owner in Zhongdian and with some patience and help of our phrasebook we (Angie) managed to buy for a good price two tickets to Beijing, leaving at 8 p.m.
After that, we found a nice cafe with Internet access where we selected pictures for the blog during the rest of the day.
posted by Adriano and Angie | 1:44 AM
3 Comments:
"Putz"... This visa issue was unexpected. I hope it is all solved by now. Good luck and keep us posted.
Wellington
Hey guys! I am sooooo proud of you! you've survived in China with no language aid! I was so much fun to read through your journeys in China, and I can't stop to laugh out loud when I was reading the part about your train ride to Kunming. I remember I'd that experience when I was yonger my father took me on the train to visit my grandmother during the holiday. It was unforgetable!!!
You are so brave! You've reminded me about time I had when I was there. I miss it so much! Hope we can do this trips together sometime in the future. I hope you did solved the visa issue too! Good luch and have alots of fun! take care!
Oops! hit the wrong key :/
That message above is from me...
Doris :) !!!
Post a Comment
<< Home